


It May Have Gone Well, But, All Things Considered, I Wish I’d Gone With the Amaryllises

by ChainSmokesPens



Category: Original Work
Genre: Comedy, Demons, Dungeon, Flash Fic, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28571328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainSmokesPens/pseuds/ChainSmokesPens
Summary: Prompt: [WP] You’re an architect at Gruffinson & Co., a company that designs and builds dungeons for monsters and villains to hide their treasures and lure in heroes. Your client, who you recently talked to over the phone, has just walked in the door of your office.





	It May Have Gone Well, But, All Things Considered, I Wish I’d Gone With the Amaryllises

I could feel Xergal on the other side of the door before I ever saw him. He radiated a heat that saturated everything it came in contact with; not atypical for a being from the Fifth Tier of Spelheim. Still, I could tell it was him because I knew that I'd messed up in my obligations as a contractor. Still, I was always one to keep a straight face in times of worry. And Rutherford didn't seem too bothered by it either.

Not even when the door was launched off its hinges and bisected him. My loyal butler's torso hit the ground with a sopping thud, before it melted into a pile of viscera that crawled up to his still-standing legs to begin reassembling him.

For my part, I stood up and spread my arms. "Xergal! My favorite spawn of the bleak womb, how have you been?"

When he let out a series of unintelligible grumbles, I remembered that I couldn't understand him. I opened the breast of my jacket and ran my fingers along the vials I stored inside. I selected one labeled "Spelheim", a glass of red liquid with a piece of coal and a human tongue floating in it, and attached it to my syringe.

I plunged the needle beneath my collarbone and began the slow injection. If there was any problem making deals with beings from other realms it was that everything from communication to planning to contract-signing was as painful as imaginable. My throat burned like acid and I felt like my ears were on fire. The hellish thirty seconds felt like a year.

I played it cool, hid my labored breathing by taking the time to delicately place the equipment back into my jacket. And by the time I had collected myself, Rutherford had fully reformed, coat and all.

"So," I said, now confident my client and I could comprehend each other, "how may I help you Xergal?"

"Damnation on you!" he spat. "Damnation on everything around you Gruffinson Andco!"

I stifled my sigh of relief. Xergal wasn't one of the demons who could use clairvoyance, and therefore see that my name was in fact not the title of my business; I hated working with those guys. Instead, he was what I liked to call the "immediate and destructive" type. And as long as he didn't know my name, he couldn't curse me.

Only maim me.

Which gave me just enough time to talk my way out of this.

With a snap of my fingers, Rutherford began his ritual. After the hand gestures, luminous spheres, and a bit of flashy poetry, the room transformed into the dungeon we had just completed for our client.

"Take me through Xergal, what's the problem?"

The twisting corridors shifted and arched around us, pulling us through the onyx and auburn brickwork of the maze we'd crafted. I couldn't help admire my work as I flew past.

The runic hallway zipped beneath my levitating feet. Should any spelunker step on the wrong tile, I number of misfortunate things could happen. Some would coagulate and solidify all of the iron inside of them. Some reversed every sense in their body, making them think right is north and making them see with their tongue. Some would make them hallucinate that they're seeing snakes and spiders. Some would drain their blood; not all of it, but just enough to conjure one of their closest living relatives to the dungeon with them. Some would shoot them.

Next, we came up to the fake treasure room. The inside of every chest was lined with whirring teeth. Every jewel in the room would inflict the one who touched it with a unique disease. And every piece of gold whispered obscenities that only the possessor could hear.

There was the lava pit, where a school of mermaids were circling, shark-like teeth gnawing their lips to bloodied shreds and their primeval bows and spears at the ready. Finding a group of lava-proof mermaids willing to bind their souls and services under contract was insanely difficult. A feather in my crown of stone.

We came to the door of Xergal's issue. I knew I'd get into a bit of conflict with him when I'd installed it, but, for his good even more than my own artistic satisfaction, I knew I needed to stand my ground here.

The door was pitch and etched with blasphemous texts that even I, with my arcane knowledge and lack of a soul, couldn't read without spontaneously combusting. It was carved from the bones of fallen giants and given a somewhat glossy finish with the liberal application of titan blood.

Xergal pushed it open.

I held my breath.

"What is this?" he asked.

I widened my eyes in feigned and once again thanked my birth star that Xergal was a stabby demon and not a knowy one. I stepped into the bathroom.

I was careful to coyly wipe my feet on the fur mat, lest my shoes smudge the white tiles. I squinted a bit; the LED lights were significantly brighter than anything else in the dungeon. The countertop was marble, topped with potpourri and azaleas. I wanted amaryllises, but Rutherford had insisted the azaleas matches the color scheme better. The toilet, like the countertop, was marble and the toilet paper was thirty-two ply.

The toilet paper alone cost me a soul. And having sold mine, I guess my son would regretting not calling me for my birthday now that Chirrunbane the Ignoble was using is eternal essences as incense.

"What's the problem?"

"Why is there a mortal bathroom in the midst of this dungeon?" he wailed. I could actually see the color red in his words.

"For the comfort." I held my hands up defensively as he heaved back, probably to immolate me. "Think about this."

I stepped outside the door frame. "You're an adventurer, who somehow made it through all of those other fabulous traps we set up in your halls." I skipped over Xergal's hoofed feet and made my way in. “Suddenly, you find something...familiar. Something that feels like home."

I turned the faucet on the sink. "You, exhausted, have a big drink of water," I shut it off, "maybe even use it to wash yourself. You're tired, you've been walking, you could use a bathroom break."

I made my way to the toilet. "Notice how big it is in here? You could fit a party of ten adventurers in here."

I sat down. "You do your business. And, considering how relaxing it has been so far, you get a little bold. You decide to touch something else. You reach for the toilet paper. And what do you think happens when you touch it?"

Xergal got visibly excited. "A monster made of your feces is summoned when you wipe yourself?"

"No. That's an OSHA violation." I touched the roll. "You feel that nice paper." I gave him a sidelong, seductive look. "Thirty-two ply."

He nearly spat up his tongues. "Thirty-two?"

"Three. Two," I confirmed.

"That's-"

"Toilet paper cut from Yggdrasil, I know, Xergal, I know..." I stood up. "And that means..."

He finished my sentence. "They'll never feel that level of comfort again!"

"And?"

"They'll be tempted to stay until they expire!"

"And?"

Xergal engorged himself, pressing against the ceiling as he shouted, "More minions for my dungeon!"

I gave him a few minutes to get his laughter out. After he settled down, the illusion faded. We were back in the office, Rutherford lowering his arms in exhaustion. "Thanks, bud. Take an hour." He bowed and left the room.

Xergal took both my hands in three of his own. "Thank you so much, Gruffinson Andco. May your spawn spread across a hundred generations and a thousand realms."

I winked. "Hey, I don't need all that. Just give us five pentagrams and tell your friends about us."

**Author's Note:**

> A really good prompt for what I felt was a really good short.


End file.
